Blanket Tracking

Toward the end of last year, I promised my mother I’d knit her a nice cosy blanket, and I set myself a slightly risky challenge: I would start it on New Year’s Day, and I would deliver it by Mothers’ Day (30th March, this year).

Fortunately, I am highly motivated by data, statistics, and shiny charts, as can be seen by the amount I spend on miscellaneous tracking app subscriptions, and things like my year in crafts embroidery. So, I thought; if I have a nice shiny tracker to show exactly how well I’m doing, I will definitely finish the thing in time. Right?

Let’s see.

As it’s just a fancy square, and I’m working from a pattern, I know roughly how many stitches I should have per row. I know exactly how many rows I’m aiming for. And as the pattern is divided quite nicely into sections, it’s pretty easy to identify where I am in that section without having to laboriously count every row.

So I set up a table with all the sections, the number of stitches in each, and the number of rows. Simple multiplication gives me the number of stitches per section, and thence the total number of stitches I need to do over the next three months.

And I can make my first chart, which answers the most important question:

How much of this damn thing have I done?

Now I set myself up a daily table to track my progress. I found the easiest way to do this was to take my total at the end of each day, and use that to calculate the daily number of stitches. Here, I could lay out where I should be, where I am, how fast I’m going, and when I’ll finish based on that current pace.

And that lets me answer a couple more questions:

Am I hitting my daily target stitches?

Not consistently, but my average is in the right place (above my target).

How well am I doing against the cumulative target?

Absolutely smashing it, 10/10, no notes.

You’ll notice that there are two target lines in the daily chart, and the cumulative target line suddenly accelerates toward the end; that’s because I’d knitted all but 3 rows of the body when the little devil on my shoulder said ’look, you’ve still got five skeins of that yarn left, why not make it bigger?’ because of course it did.

(The angel on the other shoulder was no help; reminding me that this would keep my mother extra cosy, so I’d be a terrible daughter if I didn’t go ahead and do it.)

This is the first time I’ve done such rigorous tracking on a project; then again, it’s probably the first time I’ve set myself such a strict deadline. It’s definitely helped - not just from seeing my absolutely stellar progress, but from being able to draw a line under the day. I’ve Done Enough, and it’s all going according to plan.